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the humanity
2010-02-16, 01:34 PM
I have a character that can use poison efficiently and safely, due to assassin levels and a homebrew scabbard (poison can be added as a swift action)

but the only decent poisons I have for for taking out enemies are Sinmaker's Surprise, Pit Fiend Bile and Death Blade, and even those can run kinda weak.

so, do you guys know any good poisons I can pull out for my DM next time we go shopping? I can't find them in any of the books we have.

FishAreWet
2010-02-16, 01:45 PM
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4854.0

Starscream
2010-02-16, 01:46 PM
There aren't many; poison is rarely effective for PC use.

The way I handled it in the last campaign I DM'ed that involved poison, was to have the PCs make it themselves.

There are rules for making the stuff, I just ruled that for every five by which you exceed the crafting DC the save DC increases by one and for every ten by which you exceed it the ability damage increases by one.

That's probably breakable if the PCs really want it to be (you can get your skill checks super high if you try), but the issue never came up.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-02-16, 01:46 PM
BoVD has some higher DC poisons, such as the DC 54 2d8/2d8 Str Colossal Scorpion poison for 9,000 gp per dose. Definitely consider investing ranks in Craft: Poisonmaking, detailed in both BoVD and Complete Adventurer. At least then you can get them at a reduced cost, instead of spending everything you get from one adventure on enough poisons to get through the next one.

Claudius Maximus
2010-02-16, 01:47 PM
I'm pretty sure you can steal the poison from epic monsters and use Craft (Poisonmaking) to make permanent doses of the stuff.

Quirp
2010-02-16, 01:49 PM
have you looked into the BoVD?
it has a rather big list of poisons
the strongest is scorpion poison, colossal with DC 54 damage 2d8 Str first and second (craft DC is 35, cost to buy 9000 gp)

I think Savage Species has feats to improve your poisons and there is a druid spell (venomfire, very broken)that improves your poison damage

hamishspence
2010-02-16, 01:55 PM
Dungeonscape has rules for various unusual poisons, the most deadly of which is Megapede Venom (megapede is a fairly nasty monster from MM2.)

per dose, it's 30000 gp.

And is DC44, 2d6 Con +1d4 Dex/2d6 Con + 1d4 Dex.

The BoVD poisons are exacty the same as those of the relevant MM 3.0 vermin- since 3.5 changes their poisons, arguably, the older versions of the poisons should not exist in a 3.5 game.

Flickerdart
2010-02-16, 02:05 PM
The best natural poison I can find is DC84 (primary and secondary 2d12 CON) off the Devastation Spider. Wasn't there a feat that let you milk poison from vermin?

hamishspence
2010-02-16, 02:10 PM
The Vermin Trainer feat + the Handle Animal skill, in Drow of the Underdark, enable someone to persuade a live vermin to yield up some poison for their use.

I'm not sure how you harvest poison from a dead vermin though- does it require a feat, or is it something anyone can do?

Akal Saris
2010-02-16, 03:06 PM
Glad to see my handbook linked already =)

There aren't any rules for harvesting poison from dead creatures or traps, but getting 1 dose of materials with a successful craft (alchemy/poison) or survival check equal to the poison's creation DC seems reasonable to me.

There are actually some epic poisons, but they are ludicrously expensive (as in a dose of poison costs as much as an epic staff) and not particularly useful.

I'd recommend Dungeonscape's poisons, those have some solid DCs and good effects (and should supercede the BoVD's listed DCs). Pit Fiend venom is about as good as you're likely to get - but remember that poisons are based off of Con, so if you have tougher than normal specimens the DC would also go up.

Harperfan7
2010-02-16, 03:20 PM
Does anyone ever think that maybe the reason a colossal vermins poison DC and ability damage is so high is because of quantity per hit?

Anybody?

Saph
2010-02-16, 03:24 PM
Does anyone ever think that maybe the reason a colossal vermins poison DC and ability damage is so high is because of quantity per hit?

Anybody?

*raises hand*

hamishspence
2010-02-16, 03:29 PM
thing is though, a knife can be coated in one dose of poison, and whether its Tiny scorpion venom or Colossal scorpion venom, that one dose will be used up when you stab something with it.

And "enough venom to coat a knife" of tiny scorpion venom, will have a low DC and damage, whereas enough venom to coat a knife, for a giant scorpion, will have massive DC and damage.

So, it shouldn't be just the quantity that does it- I think its a case of "the bigger vermin has venom that is just that much more toxic"

raitalin
2010-02-16, 03:57 PM
Yay, looks like I'm the first one to post WotC's official epic poison rules, from their Epic Insights articles. As I recall, these are actually pretty cool, as they ignore all magic bonuses to saves and ability scores when determining success.

Also. In nature larger poisonous species tend to be *less* potent among their Family, as the smaller ones have little use for size and devote more energy to toxicity.

Akal Saris
2010-02-16, 04:03 PM
Does anyone ever think that maybe the reason a colossal vermins poison DC and ability damage is so high is because of quantity per hit?

Anybody?

Nothing like a gallon of venom in your face...

Oh, here's the actual link (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20021110a)to that poisons article. I can't recommend using it though - 820,000g per dose and still only DC 40 for the strongest one - and that's a single dose.